For the past few days I've been searching for a program that can: draw functions, inequalities, intervals, and set related things, and lets you choose the colors and boundries for both axis. All the programs I found were rather limited. Does anyone here knows a good program for that? Preferably a free one?

Thanks in advance.

I've stickied this topic because it seems like the sort of thing a lot of readers of this forum would find useful. I'm also opening up the topic to include other math software suggestions. Especially of the free or cheap variety, since I think most people know that Maple and Mathematica and Matlab do all sorts of mathy things they might want, but they also know that those can be prohibitively expensive. - gmalivuk

For Windows, I've always been a fan of GrafEq (http://www.peda.com). It's nagware, but the nag screen is fairly innocuous. It's also powerful enough to do some very tricky things - like graphing regions based on inequalities (e.g. x2+y2 < 1), control over colours, cartesian or polar inputs (although not both at once), multiple graphs on the same plot, and a distinct avoidance of crashing when you input a discontinuous function, or something tricky like sin(1/x).

I really like this program called GraphCalc. I haven't used it too much...that is to say, I haven't used it's more complex functions, but it seems pretty detailed. It gives you very crisp 2d and 3d graphs, I use it frequently to check my calc homework. http://www.graphcalc.com

Since the question has been stickied and broadened, I'll note that octave is a free version of Matlab, Mathematica has a website where you can solve a small number of problems for free, and PARI/GP is a very good system for anyone who wants to do number theory stuff (you know, like factor large numbers quite quickly).

In general if you search, you'd be amazed at what you can find. For instance on CPAN a search for math lists dozens of pages of modules about Math in some way, shape or form. Many are admittedly useless, but often you can find something particular already built.

Indeed. I knew there had been a discussion on this within the last couple months, but I couldn't find it. Silly me for looking in the math forum instead of science.

Unless stated otherwise, I do not care whether a statement, by itself, constitutes a persuasive political argument. I care whether it's true.---If this post has math that doesn't work for you, use TeX the World for Firefox or Chrome

I saw the close/bump in the "How do you make your plots" thread. I wanted to add a vote for Pychart. If you know Python, this is the best thing I've found for making great plots. Python is also fairly easy to learn, so it's worth checking into in my opinion. http://home.gna.org/pychart/

For Mac OS X users, the application Grapher comes with your computer and is surprisingly useful. It doesn't do everything, but it can handle surprisingly complex graphing (incl. 3D and animated) and it will correctly display a ton of quite complex and difficult-to-display mathematical notation (which can then be copied into a word processor). It probably won't serve everyone's needs (especially considering the high levels of maths done here) but it handles many relatively simple things very easily and elegantly, and you already have it, so it can't hurt to check it out.

There is always ROOT, for power users. It's basically a command-line (ie. script) driven data visualization system with an internal language, CINT, that is almost identical to C++. Limited it ain't, but the learning curve is pretty damn steep, so be warned!

I've stickied this topic because it seems like the sort of thing a lot of readers of this forum would find useful. I'm also opening up the topic to include other math software suggestions. Especially of the free or cheap variety, since I think most people know that Maple and Mathematica and Matlab do all sorts of mathy things they might want, but they also know that those can be prohibitively expensive. - gmalivuk

To anyone in uni: see if you can get it cheap/free through your school.

BlackRiven wrote:I've stickied this topic because it seems like the sort of thing a lot of readers of this forum would find useful. I'm also opening up the topic to include other math software suggestions. Especially of the free or cheap variety, since I think most people know that Maple and Mathematica and Matlab do all sorts of mathy things they might want, but they also know that those can be prohibitively expensive. - gmalivuk

Singular: http://www.singular.uni-kl.de/Is good for polynomial ring computations. (Groebner basis type things, elimination etc.).Now you no longer have to lose sleep wondering if two ideas are equal or not

We use Mupad here, i think it and MathCAD are somewhat related, but i'm not sure, anyway it seems to be able to do most of the things MathCAD can do, and it can be combined with Scientific Workplace for a nice looking little package of a math/text editing program. It'll cost you some money though, but as far as i remember you can download a Mupad 'lite' that just lacks some graphical features.

Nimblefinger wrote:Out of interest, out of the expensive packages, which is best?

I suspect that depends entirely on what you want to do. MATLAB is versatile, provided you aren't afraid of its command-line interface. I liked Mathcad for solving lengthy algebra and matrix calculations with specific values. I've never actually used Maple before.

I asked in the help desk but didn't get a reply, I figured I'd ask here.

I'm trying to make a "map" or my friends. I want to see my friends and how I know them (for example, I'll have me in the middle of the map, a friend connected to me with a "friend" line, then his cousin connected to him with a "family member" line. I think the most "distant" person I know that way is a friend's cousin's friend's friend's friend's ex-girlfriend). I'd like to include family members in it etc.

So, anyone have any idea what I should use for it? I suppose a graph theory software would work, but I don't know any and didn't have much luck finding something suitable online. Do you know of a freeware program that can work? I don't have any programming knowledge at all, if that means anything.

Zohar wrote:I'm trying to make a "map" or my friends. I want to see my friends and how I know them (for example, I'll have me in the middle of the map, a friend connected to me with a "friend" line, then his cousin connected to him with a "family member" line. I think the most "distant" person I know that way is a friend's cousin's friend's friend's friend's ex-girlfriend). I'd like to include family members in it etc.

So, anyone have any idea what I should use for it? I suppose a graph theory software would work, but I don't know any and didn't have much luck finding something suitable online. Do you know of a freeware program that can work? I don't have any programming knowledge at all, if that means anything.

Well, there's not really much math involved there. You could do just fine with Dia, I imagine.

Hmmm... Looked at it on Wikipedia and it seems like it might do the trick. I didn't know about it. I could also use Powerpoint for this but it would turn out very annoying and tedious, which is why I thought a graph theory program would be nice. Also, implementing graph theory would supposedly allow me to directly see how a person links to me, which I'm not sure this can do. But I'll try it anyway. Thanks!

How about Mathematica vs Matlab - I can see both of them do a huge amount of stuff, but are there any areas one covers which the other doesn't do so well, and are there any advantages of one over the other etc?

An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today.

Matlab only does numeric stuff (almost). It's useful for quickly making various plots.

Mathematica does symbolic stuff as well. It can do some pretty tough integrals. It also has pretty much any mathematical function you can think of. I don't know how efficient it is at numeric stuff, but it should be pretty good at that too.

Torn Apart By Dingos wrote:Matlab only does numeric stuff (almost). It's useful for quickly making various plots.

Mathematica does symbolic stuff as well. It can do some pretty tough integrals. It also has pretty much any mathematical function you can think of. I don't know how efficient it is at numeric stuff, but it should be pretty good at that too.

I'm looking for software that'd allow me to make mathematical diagrams quickly, without too much effort. I don't like to have to aim exactly at a circle after I've drawn it to get a radius, and I like to be able to adjust things after I'm done.

I used Pro/ENGINEER for an engineering class last semester, and its sketching function was pretty excellent. If my mouse was near a curve, it would assume that I wanted a point on the curve. If a line was nearly vertical, it would assume that I wanted it vertical. If two lines were about the same length, it would assume that they were supposed to be the same length. (Of course, all of these constraints could be disabled.) I could adjust dimensions and things after drawing them, by dragging things around or by entering numerical values, and the constraints that we had before (vertical lines, point on a curve) would stay satisfied. Basically, I really liked the design of it.

Of course, it was part of a 3D engineering modelling thing that I don't need and can't possibly afford for my own computer.

Now I'm looking for a (free?) program that would do some of the same nice stuff that Pro/ENGINEER Sketcher does, and I haven't been able to find anything yet.

Jerry Bona wrote:The Axiom of Choice is obviously true; the Well Ordering Principle is obviously false; and who can tell about Zorn's Lemma?

I've just stumbled upon this page, while I was looking for software to verify some elliptic curve stuff. It allows you to run server-side Magma scripts in your web browser (with a maximum execution time of 20s).

No graphical stuff, but useful for quick computer algebra calculations, without having to bother about installing any software.

Generally I try to make myself do things I instinctively avoid, in case they are awesome.-dubsola